1. Technical Field
The invention relates generally to circuit design, and more particularly, to a solution that detects a rule violation in a circuit and generates a set of predictions based on one or more adjustments.
2. Background Art
Printed circuit boards used in computing devices typically must pass one or more electromagnetic compliance tests before being sold in a country. The use of good design practices in designing each printed circuit board is one of the most cost-effective solutions for increasing the probability that a manufactured circuit board will subsequently pass the test(s). To this extent, it is preferred to check design data for a new printed circuit board against these good design practices to determine any violations. Subsequently, the circuit board design can be altered, if possible, to conform to these design practices before the circuit board is manufactured.
Currently, most checking of design data for circuits is conducted manually. In particular, an individual may visually review the design data using circuit design software to identify any violations. Due to the complexity of this task, some software tools exist to check the design data against a previously-specified set of physical design parameters to detect a violation. Even so, once a violation is identified, the individual must assess the relative benefit of  modifying the design data to conform to the design parameter versus the relative risk of not modifying the design data. To assist in this assessment, the individual can use full-wave simulation software. In a full-wave simulation, a model representative of a particular problem is generated and a simulator processes the model to yield a result. However, due to the complexity of even a simple problem, actual processing time of the full-wave simulation can be long (perhaps 24 hours). As a result, full-wave simulation is limited to evaluating specific simple problems, making some circuit designs too large to be simulated.
In light of this situation, a need exists for an improved solution for designing and/or evaluating a circuit. In particular, a need exists for a solution by which a rule violation can be identified in the circuit and one or more predictions as to the anticipated benefit of modifying the circuit to remove/partially remove the rule violation can be efficiently generated.